


it's like an echo in my head

by kitmarlowed



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, introspective, second person narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every life, the poets and novelists say, has love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's like an echo in my head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moogle62](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/gifts).



Vanessa's problem, Mina would have told you, before all of this started, is that she loves to easily.

+

Dorian is an enigma. That's rather the point in him, you suppose, he's another interloper in London, not quite belonging but certainly not out of place.

You fall together, crash into eachother, for you he's a release, for him, well, you are not a psychic, not under your own steam. 

It's not a night you would care to repeat. Barely a night you can remember. You do not want his sympathy, his affections. But he is kind, he's not one to press the issue, not when he sees you bloody and bruised and terrified. Freshly awake, and with the knowledge of everything you have done so clear, so vivid and bright in your mind. 

You think he sees then that you are not the undaunted, not the ivory tower of strength and 'otherness' he may have seen when first you met. He sees your fallibility, the things you can't unleash, the reasons you hide. You are not ashamed of your weaknesses, but you are certainly ashamed of the reason for them. 

Once you could have taken the world, Mina at your side; now you're shattered, a wave breaking on the shores of missing Mina.

+

Ethan is a challenge. You could lie and say that he's entirely unattractive to you (he's not) but he's different, and that's good. The challenge lies in winning him as an ally, something you're unused to.

Strictly speaking you've had trouble coming to terms with the fact that what you, Sir Malcolm, and the others are playing at is to all intents and purposes a war. A very, very single minded one, but none the less a conflict of ideals, of races. Warfare between the worlds. You do not know where Ethan Chandler fits, neither will you ignore the signs that point, not obviously but not ignorably, towards Ethan's fighting for a team he does not strictly belong to.

But Ethan is warm, and kind when he embraces you. Ethan is a brother.

You love him, in your own way.

"You're an odd one, Miss Ives," he tells you and you smile and smile, say, "you've no idea," but think he really, truly, might.

+

You've lived with hatred for so long now that you've come to accept the seething, quiet rage as your due. That Malcolm is there, and you are there, and that you do the things you do and walk the same streets to find the same monsters but he'll never be anything to you but a reminder of your shame, a reminder of someone you once looked up to. A relation of someone you loved.

Mina's father, removed. Mina's father mad. Mina's father willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring her back and you, and you - you'd go further. You don't love her more, per se, but you love her different. You love her endlessly and hopelessly and you aren't only fueled by that. 

Your guilt is what is driving you insane, what brought the devil to your door, and that makes you powerful. You're the one she comes to after all, not Malcolm.

Malcolm is cold, and then protects you, he is angry and then embraces you.

He would never call you daughter, or so you thought. 

"I'm sorry," he says, his arms loose around your shoulders as the adrenaline fades, "we both wanted to save her."

You look at him, force a weak smile, you're grateful to him and you're relieved to no longer be what he hates most. "I'm so sorry," you echo back to him. "We both loved her."

+

The doctor is difficult for you to read. At first rude, then poetic. Brash then wryly, quietly, clever. He takes to you quickly, hates Ethan instantly, and, amusingly, looks up to Malcolm if not quite as sycophantically as the boys usually do. 

You wonder, watching him about Malcolm's house, what he's hiding - the devil has told you some things but the glances he throws behind him whenever he walks, his staying away from windows when inside, the nervous habits and the loud atheism, they tell you more. He's hiding something, something big and something monstrous. 

He takes an interest in blood, and you guess. 

He takes an interest in life after death and you think you might know. Your clever doctor, bridging the gap between death and life. It's different than the creatures you hunt to find Mina, it's purer somehow, an advancement in science - a kindness as opposed to whatever blood virus the creatures bring with their bites.

"We'll protect you," you say. "You can stay here, with us. Move your laboratory doctor and we'll keep you safe."

Victor doesn't smile, and the eyes that turn to you are almost empty, devoid of anything except some sliver of exhaustion. "It's not me," he says, "that I'm worried about, Miss Ives. I'm not the one in danger."

You've noticed a pattern - yours are dangerous loves.

+

Every life, the poets and novelists say, has love. Orphans find parents, women husbands, and bachelors wives. 

You had Mina, and you ruined it.

It replays in your mind, what you did. Mina's heartbreak in your prayers, behind your eyes when you sleep. You still pass things in the street and turn to point them out to her - it's been so long. She's been gone so long and now she's truly dead but the haunting hasn't changed much, she comes to you without crypticism now. She is only memory to you now.

You walk with her on that beach again, she in white and you in black, but this time she smiles, tells you she's all right. You take her hand, in your dreams, you tell her all things you'd never dared to when she was alive.

You hadn't wanted him, you explain, you'd wanted a part of her, and in the dream you laugh at yourself. You tell her all this and more, more than sisters.

"I did not go because of you," dream Mina tells you. "You can let go."

You say you can't and you open your eyes.

You still love her.

**Author's Note:**

> HOPE YOU LIKE IT :) I wanted to explore the different relationships between all of the main cast and Vanessa, but obviously with Mina as the most important and lasting connection in Vanessa's life.


End file.
